Cache of WW2 bombs found under a playground in Northumberland

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c36x08jezw5o

by iamben • 11 months ago

46 21 11 months ago

bbc.co.uk

latexr• 11 months ago

generations of children have had a blast

Thankfully not!

waltbosz• 11 months ago

I don't like puns in articles.

FridayoLeary• 11 months ago

What will happen to all the unexploded ordnance just lying in the ground since ww2? Will they eventually decay and dissolve, or will they just get more and more volatile over time?

Arainach• 11 months ago

Over geological timespans, everything decays. Over many decades things can remain unstable or volatile. Even if most of it becomes ineffective, some may be volatile so disturbing anything will be dangerous for many lifetimes.

rcruzeiro• 11 months ago

I think that, when undisturbed, the risk is pretty low. The real danger if someone inadvertently disturbing an old bomb with a corroding casing. Take the SS Richard Montgomery, for example. We are basically just letting nature do its thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery?wprov=sf...

emmelaich• 11 months ago

Or WW1, which happens in Flanders/Belgium regularly. I think both. Farmers die from time to time plowing or handling old bombs. If you travel around there you may see bombs left by the front gates for a regular pickup service.

susiecambria• 11 months ago

More info about the explosions and the pickup service: https://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/iron-harvest

hyperman12• 11 months ago

Also Flanders: There is this article avfew months ago about kids going on a youth camp, and bringing grenade parts home in their backpack. Turns out, they thought: nice stones, dug them up, and kept them as souvenirs

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2025/07/31/ouders-in-leuven-vin...

gerdesj• 11 months ago

Well, you'll be glad to know that people like my dad (ATO/EOD) sorted quite a lot of it out back in the day. However, they could only demolish what they were pointed at and as this article notes, there is more that keeps on turning up.

This is a bit of a worry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

I suggest you don't buy property or go swimming nearby to that. I'm going to stick in Somerset.

nwellinghoff• 11 months ago

Fascinating. Amazing they don’t just evacuate the town and detonate it. Seems like a matter of time before it goes.

ants_everywhere• 11 months ago

This seems like it has to vary significantly depending on a number of factors.

Unexploded ordnance refers to ordnance that was deployed but failed to explode. E.g. the bomb was dropped from a plane and just didn't explode.

Deployed mines that haven't exploded are just waiting for someone to interact with them. This seems like it must be the highest risk.

This article appears to be about a cache of unused bombs. They would not ordinarily explode on their own, but if everything is decaying then the safety mechanisms are also decaying so there must be some risk.

Ancapistani• 11 months ago

My assumption is that it will always be a problem.

There was a case in Virginia where a man was killed by a US civil-war era artillery round in his garage. Granted, he was in the process of making it safe at the time, but this was ~2010 from memory - so ~150 years after the conflict occurred.

Given that, we can obviously expect that some ordnance from WW2 will still be dangerous in 2095.

zevon• 11 months ago

In many countries, that ordnance is still found and disposed of more or less regularly. The decaying involves lots of nasty chemicals. It's happening at sea as well, by the way (because they dumped their leftovers after the wars there). Here's a short info piece by the German environment ministry about the issue: https://www.bundesumweltministerium.de/en/topics/marine-cons... and here's a European map: https://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/atlas/maritime_atlas/#l...

Guthur2• 11 months ago

The costs of UK munition dumping are quite high and varied.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort%27s_Dyke

arrowsmith• 11 months ago

There's also this sunk ship just off the coast of Kent that might blow up one day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

Guthur2• 11 months ago

The constant delay would laughable if it wasn't for the fact that it might end up being tragic.

The UK government really does love to stick it's head in the sand when it comes to problems.

zanchey• 11 months ago

Someone gave me a book called "Danger UXB", about the teams that removed unexploded bombs across the UK during and after WWII, which was unexpectedly fascinating. Incredibly dangerous and painstaking work.

wrp• 11 months ago

Danger UXB (1979) the miniseries was also very good at portraying the bomb disposal procedures.

rex_lupi• 11 months ago

loved it!

thebruce87m• 11 months ago

Was paddling in a beach in Scotland at the weekend and found a .303 bullet. Some research said it’s a US made one from 1915-1917.

Cache of WW2 bombs found under a playground in Northumberland

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